I’m renting a multi-unit house (like a duplex, but vertical instead of horizontal). We live downstairs and our landlord lives upstairs. There is a fireplace in each living room. The fireplaces are connected internally to the same chimney. When we light a fire, you can smell the smoke upstairs and it gets a little hazy in the room. The same thing happens downstairs when a fire is lit upstairs. As I understand it,* this is with the active flue open and the inactive flue closed.
We only light the fireplace once a month, give or take. I hate smelling smoke when my landlord lights a fire. And I’m sure he doesn’t like it when we light ours, although he hasn’t stopped lighting fires (nor recommended we stop). I would like to know: is this dangerous? Or is this how a multi-floor fireplace is expected to work?
(Little bump here.) I’m not sure, but - tell me you have a carbon monoxide detector installed (and placed appropriately, working properly, and with fresh batteries). Because that just does not sound good to me.
I’m going to guess that this only happens for 30 minutes or so after lighting the fire. Cold chimneys do not function well; once the chimney warms the natural convection kicks in and the air flow works properly.
Each fireplace will have its own flue inside the chimney. The flue is a tile liner in older chimneys. It cracks over the years and can cause chimney fires like this. It can be easily fixed. They break out the old tile and then install a stainless steel liner. http://www.cecurechimney.com/images/chimney-problems-sidebar.png
Unfortunately the odor lingered for 24 hours. It might have hung around longer, but we opened the windows and circulated it out with a fan today (not ideal when it’s below freezing).
An inspection would be a great idea. I’m not the homeowner and I couldn’t afford that anyway.
both gases would be deadly if they displaced the oxygen needed to live.
though CO is deadly at much lower levels than that because it attaches to your hemoglobin (red blood cells) instead of oxygen and doesn’t come off it easily.
CO is produced by incomplete combustion which is always a danger when burning wood or other fuels for heat inside a house.
I’m pretty sure Illinois requires landlords to provide carbon monoxide detectors, as our last landlords randomly showed up with one a few years back.
We already had one. A former coworker had her whole family mild-to-moderately poisoned by carbon monoxide, caused by faulty furnace venting. Her daughter had to spend some time in the ICU.
Thanks for all the info. I’m definitely more worried about it now than I was before. Will get a CO detector installed asap.
I’m in upstate New York now. I just did some googling and, after filtering through all the results for NYC, it does appear to be a legal requirement that CO detectors are installed by landlords in this state. We don’t have one. I’m not going to make a big deal out of it, because we’re paying outrageously low rent for the area. I’ll just pick one up.
I understand too that creosote buildup is a problem with fireplace chimneys, especially if there is incomplete combustion. How often (if every) has the chimney been cleaned? I see ads on TV every so often for a “Chimney-sweeping log” which has the ingredients to reduce creosote buildup. Or maybe so far you haven’t gotten the chimney hot enough to catch fire.
If the chimney was built properly with separate flues to the roof, is the cross-over happening at the top? Are you sucking air down the chimney? How separated are the tops of the flues? Did you (he) install a modern natural gas furnace in the last decade or three, which IIRC sucks air from inside the home and vents it out a plastic pipe to the side, thus creating negative pressure in your house; does air get sucked in around slightly open doors? Maybe buildup is why the damper on the chimney does not seal?
I’m worried you’re still not worried enough. The “Why” of the OP is that something is wrong. Tell your Landlord not ONE DIME of rent until he fixes it. CO detectors not require by law? If your Landlord doesn’t know, suggest 2nd degree murder charges if you die.
For what it’s worth, I have a similar problem with my fireplaces sometimes. I own the whole home, but we have the same configuration with two fireplaces one above the other, both using the same brick chimney. Especially when I’m burning a fire in the upper floor fireplace, fumes come down through the lower floor fireplace. I don’t notice fumes upstairs when the fire is downstairs.
I do have a CO detector down there, and it has never reported a buildup of CO. So I conclude it’s not much of a safety issue in my scenario - it’s just not very pleasant. (WA’s new laws now require these detectors in every home, rented or sold.)
One fix that seems to work is to close the flue on the lower fireplace and open a window a crack somewhere in the house. This almost completely eliminates the odor downstairs. I’m not sure if that’s a good solution in a scenario where you can’t control the landlord’s upstairs windows, but you could at least try closing your own flue and see if that makes any difference.
Dracoi may have a point. In old draughty houses, there was little problem getting a chimney to draw. These days, with vastly improved insulation and draught proofing, your problem may just be that the fire does not have sufficient air to make it work properly.
yes if until the fire, flue and smoke is hot it might find its way to the other flue and sink down to the first floor. letting more air into the first floor (window or door cracked open) will allow warm room air to flow up your closed flue and could eliminate the backflow from the upstairs fireplace.
